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Palestine in Pictures: April 2018

Blood is seen on the clothes of Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar, who treats injured Palestinian protesters during Great March of Return protests, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 1 April.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Thirty-three Palestinians were fatally injured by Israeli occupation forces and armed civilians during the month of April. Four others died of injuries sustained the previous month.

All but three of them were killed in Gaza as Israel continued its lethal crackdown on the Great March of Return protests. Fifty-one Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the outset of the protests on 30 March.

No Israelis were killed by Palestinians during the month of April, and no Israeli injuries have been reported as a result of the Great March of Return protests.

More than 6,400 Palestinians, including at least 530 children, have been injured during the protests, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Nearly 2,000 people have been wounded by live ammunition. Many of those injured will have disabilities for life.

“Over the course of four Fridays of demonstrations, far more Palestinians have been injured in the Gaza Strip than in the preceding three years combined,” United Nations humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick stated.

Five children and two journalists were among those killed by Israeli forces in Gaza’s eastern perimeter during April.

West Bank slayings

Israeli civilians and soldiers killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in April.

Iyad Zabarka, 30, from Qalansawa, a Palestinian town in Israel, was shot dead by a soldier on 3 April after he crashed the car he was driving into a bus stop near the Ariel settlement. The soldier fired on Zabarka when he attempted to flee the scene by foot.

Zabarka was reportedly driving a stolen car and was being pursued by a private security company before the crash.

Anbar was hit with three bullets fired by the guards, who claimed that Anbar ran towards them in a suspicious manner. No weapon was found on Anbar and no Israeli was reported hurt during the incident.

Muhammad Abd al-Karim Marshoud, 30, was fatally wounded by an Israeli man after allegedly using a screwdriver to try to stab a second Israeli, who was unhurt, at the Mishor Adumim industrial park in an occupied West Bank settlement east of Jerusalem on 8 April.

It was reported during the month that residents of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran reached an agreement with the Israeli government to relocate to the town of Hura in the southern Naqab region.

A town leader said that the Israeli government’s Bedouin resettlement authority forced residents to sign the agreement in the early dawn hours as police and demolition teams arrived to Umm al-Hiran. Israel plans to build a Jewish-only town in Umm al-Hiran’s place.

Among the structures demolished or seized by Israeli forces in the West Bank during the month were classrooms at a primary school serving 24 students in the herding community of Khirbet Zanuta in southern Hebron and a car wash and public playground for children near the Qalandiya checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Israel also punitively demolished a home in the West Bank city of Jenin, displacing seven persons, including two children, on 23 April. The home belonged to the family of a Palestinian imprisoned for his involvement in the killing of a settler in January 2018. Two homes have been demolished or sealed on punitive grounds since the beginning of the year, according to the United Nations monitoring group OCHA.

Rafah crossing opened

Rafah crossing, the sole point of exit and entry for the vast majority of Gaza’s two million residents, was opened by Egypt on 12 to 14 April and for another three days on 28 April.

Rafah crossing has been opened fewer than 20 days so far this year.

Palestinians in Gaza endured rolling power cuts of up to 20 hours per day after the sole power plant in the territory shut down on 12 April due to lack of fuel.

More than 40 Palestinians were reported killed in April as a result of the ongoing war in Syria.

A medic treats wounded journalist Yaser Murtaja, shot by an Israeli sniper while covering Great March of Return protests east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 6 April. Murtaja died of his injuries hours later.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinian medics hold a protest outside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem demanding an end to Israeli attacks on paramedics and journalists in Gaza, 8 April.

Wisam HashlamounAPA images

A Palestine sunbird is seen on a tree in the West Bank city of Nablus on 9 April.

Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

Palestinians gather at a Great March of Return site east of Gaza City after Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh spoke during a rally demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homeland on 9 April.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinians hold a symbolic birthday party for Hussein Madi, shot in the heart and killed by an Israeli sniper three days earlier, east of Gaza City on 9 April — what would have been his 14th birthday.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinian pupils attend class in a tent at the site where their school, demolished by Israeli occupation forces, once stood in the West Bank city of Hebron, 10 April.

Wisam HashlamounAPA images

Palestinians hold posters depicting Sami al-Janazra, a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike in Israeli jail, during a solidarity protest in the West Bank city of Hebron on 10 April.

Wisam HashlamounAPA images

A Hamas security officer inspects a site hit by Israeli tank fire on the outskirts of Gaza City, near the boundary with Israel, on 11 April. Israeli tanks targeted sites in eastern Gaza City in what the Israeli army and media reported was a response to an explosive device that was detonated near an Israeli military bulldozer along the boundary with Israel.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinian groom Ramadan Abu Sukkar celebrates during his wedding at the Great March of Return tents east of Gaza City on 11 April.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Israeli soldiers are seen from the Nahal Oz kibbutz as Palestinian protesters burn tires in Gaza’s eastern boundary on 13 April.

Oren ZivActiveStills

Relatives of Palestinians jailed by Israel call for their loved ones’ release on the occasion of Palestinian Prisoners Day, West Bank city of Nablus, on 17 April.

Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

A Palestinian man stands next a wall vandalized with Jewish supremacist slogans by suspected Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Nablus, 17 April.

Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

Dozens of used tear gas canisters are seen next to a home during confrontations between the Israeli army and youth in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on 21 April.

Anne PaqActiveStills

A Palestinian boy flies a kite during Great March of Return protests east of Gaza City on 18 April.

Yasser QudihAPA images

A counterprotester holds an Israeli flag during a demonstration in front of the QEII Centre in London, where HSBC’s annual general meeting was taking place on 20 April. Activists protested what they called the bank’s complicity with Israel.

Ahmad Al-BazzActiveStills

A staff member prepares a prosthetic leg at Gaza’s Artificial Limbs and Polio Center in Gaza City on 24 April. Gaza’s health ministry announced that 17 Palestinians had limbs amputated after being injured by Israeli snipers during Great March of Return protests.

Mahmoud AjourAPA images

Palestinian football player Muhammad Abu Obaid, 26, shot in both legs by Israeli occupation forces during Great March of Return protests, at his home in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 24 April.

Mahmoud KhattabAPA images

Mourners carry the body of Palestinian scientist Fadi al-Batsh, assassinated in Malaysia on 21 April, during his funeral in the northern Gaza Strip on 26 April. Reportedly a member of the Hamas movement, al-Batsh was shot dead in a hail of bullets by motorbike-riding assailants as he walked to a Kuala Lumpur mosque for dawn prayers.

Mahmoud AjourAPA images

Mourners carry the body of Palestinian journalist Ahmad Abu Hussein during his funeral in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on 26 April. Abu Hussein died a day earlier, succumbing to his injuries after he was shot in the stomach by an Israeli sniper while covering Great March of Return protests on 13 April.

Mofeed Abu ZaidaAPA images

Palestinians confront Israeli occupation forces during Great March of Return protests east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 27 April.

Sanad LatefaAPA images

Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, takes part in a Great March of Return protest east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 27 April.

Sanad LatefaAPA images

Israeli soldiers replace sections of the wall in Jerusalem’s Shuafat refugee camp, separating it from Pisgat Zeev settlement, on 27 April after it collapsed the day before due to heavy rainfall and floods.

Oren ZivActiveStills

Palestinian leftists protest against suspended public servant salaries in front of the headquarters of the Council of Ministers, Gaza City, on 29 April. The Palestinian Authority suspended payments to 20,000 civil servants in Gaza the previous month.